I never had a insurance, but 2 days before I was traveling to the USA I made one. And now, 3.5 weeks later I come back an lost more than 60'000.00.Hm, I am really curious how they handle it! Its also embarrassing for me! I thought, I never will use this Insurance...

I hope really that you will become your money very fast! How much is the hole gear?

Sorry to hear that. That's a hell of a lot of loss. Mine is nothing in comparison.

I hope you have better luck in the future. Hopefully your equipment may turn up eventually?Have you got all the necessary paperwork, serial numbers etc?

I've told everyone I can, Police, forums, friends, facebook etc.I'm checking for my equipment everyday on eBay, craigslist etc.As I'm not a professional photographer I didn't feel it was necessary to have professional insurance for my equipment as my house insurance is supposed to cover it.I'm calling the ombudsmen today to try to sort it all out.

Hopefully that will make the insurance company see sense.Best of luck with your problem, if there is anything I can do to help let me know.

Finally some action by the insurance company. I am to be visited by a loss adjuster. Don't know why as the theft was in London and not at the property and the car it was stolen from was a courtesy car on loan from a main BMW dealer.

The guy I spoke to on the phone who made the appointment asked some very weird things."Was I dealing with the claim", who else would be?"Was there access to the property", my answer well we live here so yes but there isn't wheelchair access as we are not disabled.Asking me again to repeat the whole scenario and loss even though I've done that 3 times already.

I assume he had a script of questions and was going through the motions but it was like talking to a machine.

Well at least there is something happening I suppose. Still no sight of my stuff on Ebay, craiglist etc.

See if there is a consumer advocacy group you can contact.It's advisable to get a primer on how to deal with a loss adjuster.They will do all sorts of stuff to get out of it.I had a case where they kept on passing it on to another adjuster to try to get me to drop the claim.Beyond a certain point you can take it to an insurance claims lawyer.They can be very helpfull. I went to one that charged the insurance for all his fees and not me.They settled very quickly once the lawyer was involved. Cost me nothing.

Thank you for that. I will seek further assistance from these groups. I had already spoken to the Ombudsmen who have given me a ref number should everything go south.

I have just had the conversation with the Loss Adjuster today. Annoyingly this is also the first time I had actually looked at what I had covered.Although I had specified certain items, all of the Hassey stuff was so new that I had not had time to specifically list it so it fell under the misc items list.

I managed to produce receipts for 98% of what was stolen which in itself was 5 days in the finding.

I had noticed that the insurance brokers had not listed my specific items correctly and also missed out a lot of stuff that I would have definitely listed from the point of inception of the policy. I have now had to call the insurance brokers to ask why this was not done correctly.

Never the less the Hasselblad/Filters/etc was not specifically listed and only comes under a £10,000 personal possessions cover. Although there is £36,000 of content cover listed.Hopefully that should cover the replacement Hasselblad and lenses with some of the accessories lost (though they apparently have some sort of new for old clause) so if they follow their rules I may only get a 503CW body to replace what was stolen?I'm a bit annoyed at the brokers for not listing my items correctly and wait their response.

As for the conversation with the Loss Adjuster, he asked me lots of questions identical to the last questions I had from the insurance company. That makes now 5 times I have had to tell the story of what happened, the police info, crime numbers etc.

Oh, what is the purpose of them coming to the house and also taking a picture of it when they leave?The dude went into the back garden and took a picture of the house. What the hell has that got to do with the theft?

Oh, what is the purpose of them coming to the house and also taking a picture of it when they leave?The dude went into the back garden and took a picture of the house. What the hell has that got to do with the theft?

The point of taking photos is to see how you look after your possessions. Do you have gardening equipment lying around? Is your tool shed locked? That sort of stuff. They will try every trick in the book to avoid having to pay. The whole experience will feel like wringing blood from a stone.

It's clear that only those with bad experiences are chiming in so I offer this as a counterbalance. My home was burgled a couple of years ago, while my wife, my daughter and I were asleep upstairs. We'd moved in about four months earlier. We had an alarm, but it wasn't on (and, the way it was configured, wouldn't have sounded anyway). The thieves were very quiet and very tidy. They took some expensive hi-fi (mostly Naim) and a large flat-screen TV, handing it out through a window with an 8-foot drop beneath it. They didn't come upstairs, happily.

The insurers paid out in full, even replacing some of the hi-fi stuff with rather better models; and when the old hi-fi was recovered by the police, coincidentally just at the time when Naim had finally manufactured and delivered the replacements, they didn't want either it or the new stuff.

One thing I can say is that insurance companies make more a year on interest on the money they should be paying out than anything else, this is done by stalling.... We know it as stalling, they know it as procedure.

You are fine, you have a genuine loss, with crime number, just get on to them muttering about how you cannot trade whilst this drags on, how you expected better proffesional service from them and as you provided 98% of your receipts you cannot see why this is taking so long etc....

You can get stroppy with them, they will be sick of you and want the case off their desk.

Consult the Ombudsmen now.... This is pathetic service, the assessor should have been round within a week.

According to them I am being unfairly penalised by the main underwriters for a minor flood I had back in 2009.I accidentally shoved a nail through a central heating pipe while laying marine ply in a bathroom.A very long story but I used the ombudsmen then and won the case due to the insurance companies negligence and the contractor they hired to repair the flood who did more damage than they repaired. Ever since then the insurance company has imposed severe penalties and premiums and listed any phone call queries I had with them as claims, making look like I claimed every year since then.

Needless to say the ombudsmen are now reopening the case and asking questions.

My insurance renewal is this on the 17th of this month and I have just been told that the insurance company have just rescinded my renewal. I have been told by the ombudsmen and trading standards they have to give at least 30 days notice. The only insurance company I can get insurance with is the same insurance company who have been imposing penalties on me since their cock up in 2009.

Pretty sad that an insurance company conducts business this way. I had a claim a few years ago regarding a few stollen item and my broker Tom Pickard insurance and farmers the insurer could not have been any more professional. The claim was taken care of within 2 weeks.

You are having an exceptionally unpleasant experience. Not all insurers with whom I've dealt have been as co-operative as the one I described earlier in this thread, but none has been anywhere near as bad as yours. I sympathise.